


Hate the Sinner but Love the Sin

by embroiderama



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bloodplay, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-19
Updated: 2010-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-06 11:44:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam struggles with Christmas in July, and Ruby gives him her own kind of gift.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hate the Sinner but Love the Sin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dramaturgy](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=dramaturgy).



> Title from Aimee Mann's "High on Sunday 51." Thank you to musesfool for the beta!

Christmas was like a rehash of so many of the worst moments of Sam's life. The lonely Christmases when Dad couldn't manage to get home, his first Christmas break at Stanford--alone and hungry when he found out the dining halls were closed. He spent one Christmas with Jess's family, and for all that it was supposed to be an idyllic family holiday, it had been a clusterfuck. He'd been sneezing, his eyes red and watering from the aggressively scented cinnamon candles her mom liked to burn. Jess's dad had been out to trip Sam up in some kind of lie, which sucked considering that Sam had to tell a lot of lies, and Jess's cousin--her cousin _Edward_\--had kept hitting on him.

People really shouldn't put up mistletoe when they're expecting guests. It just seemed wrong.

The first Christmas without Jess had been even worse. He missed her with a persistent ache in his gut, and everything about him was chafing at going back to spending his life on the road, in the hunt. He and Dean had both gotten drunk and fallen asleep in front of a Ninja Warrior marathon.

And then the last Christmas with Dean--that memory tasted like spiked eggnog and bitter fear in Sam's mouth. He'd bet people were still finding needles from that dried up, pathetic scrap of a pine tree in the motel room he'd decorated. Still, it had been worth it, giving that to Dean when there was so goddamn little he could do to make things better. Sam had still thought, in December, that he could save Dean, keep him from going to hell. As awful as that Christmas had been--the cruelty of old gods, the sham of their own celebration, the sting and pulsing ache of his finger where the nail had been torn off--Sam would give anything to have it back. Having Dean back on this earth, having back the person he was when he had some semblance of faith that he could save Dean, would be nothing less than a miracle.

And like almost every miracle Sam had ever prayed for, it was never going to happen. Dean was in hell, and Sam was in some town in New Jersey that celebrated Christmas in July with the kind of fervor usually reserved for the real thing. Early in the morning, just as he drove into town, the Impala had started making a horrible banging sound, the acrid smell of smoke leaking into the interior, and Sam could feel Dean hating him all the way from hell. He pulled into the first service station he came across, and his first thought after walking inside was that the employees had to be the laziest people ever if they still hadn't taken down their Christmas decorations by July.

Then he noticed the big red bells hanging from the lamp posts, and the office at the motel he checked into looked like the after-Christmas sale department at Walgreens had thrown up all over it. The lights and the artificial plastic cheer twisted Sam's stomach and he thought he might just be sick himself.

Dean had been gone for two months, and there was no joy, no light, no peace. Silent night was just the dead quiet of being in a motel room by himself without Dean's familiar breathing, without bad movies on the TV and the crinkling sounds of potato chip bags and the clink of a six-pack. Sam had tried to dull the sharp edge of that silence with alcohol, but it never worked for long enough. The bare fact that he couldn't change things, couldn't bring Dean back no matter how hard he tried, was something that Sam couldn't easily live with. Drinking only took away more of his control, made the mornings hurt more than ever.

The one thing that gave him back some sense of control was exorcising, holding out his hand and sending a demon back to the pit, saving the person who'd held that blackness inside. Sometimes. The only time he could find peace was with his lips cupped on Ruby's skin, her blood in his mouth, her hands in his hair, her chest breathing against his, skin to skin.

Sam slept away the rest of the morning and the afternoon, hoping to wake up to a knock on the door. He hadn't seen Ruby for over a week, and he needed her, craved the taste of her on his tongue. He woke in the evening still alone, his stomach empty, and he wandered out into the town to find something to eat, something to do, maybe something to hunt. It was still bright, just a slight tinge of dusk in the sky, and as he walked past storefronts decorated with lights and tinsel the late daylight felt just as wrong as the heat baking up off the pavement. Sam ducked into a diner, ordered the special and ate it without really tasting it.

He listened, though, listened to the locals talking at the table behind him, and from them he learned that there was a pool hall around the corner. Sam's wallet was nearly empty of cash, and the car repairs would use up the last good credit card he'd managed to line up. There might be something waiting at the mail drop in Ohio, but first he had to get to Ohio, and it would be a hell of a walk. At the pool hall, Sam ordered a series of beers and nursed tiny sips from each one, dropping the nearly-full bottles on random empty tables and ordering another. He let his eyelids droop, let his legs waver as he walked, and every game he won seemed to the locals like a miracle, a fluke, a run of good luck that was sure to end with the next round, or the next.

Hours later, Sam walked out the door flush with cash. He detoured around the block, not wanting to give any of his opponents an easy shot at following him back to the motel, and stopped in front of a pawn shop. Dean had always liked browsing in pawn shops, and they'd found a few good weapons in them over the years, once even a protection charm that had made Bobby's eyes light up like a kid at Christmas.

Christmas. Even the grimy pawn shop was decorated, but Sam stepped inside anyway. There was probably nothing waiting for him back at the motel other than his laptop and another night of doing research until his eyes burned. He could see right away that the place didn't have anything really interesting, but he browsed anyway, looking over the guitars hanging on the wall, the stacks of TVs and DVD players. The glass case held rows of watches and rings, and in the middle of the necklaces he spotted a silver chain with a diamond-shaped ruby pendant hanging from it.

Sam pointed at it, and the balding man behind the counter pulled it out. The chain was cool against Sam's hand, but the pendant itself felt warm and heavy in his palm. He didn't let himself think about what he was doing, just paid for it and walked away with it zipped into a tiny plastic bag stuffed in the pocket of his jeans. Back at the room, he tucked half of the remaining cash in his duffel and left the rest in his wallet as he sat down to start his nightly trawl through news sites and message boards, looking for where to go next. He woke up with his head tipped back against the wall, a sharp pain in his neck from the uncomfortable angle. A knock came from the door, the buzz of a text from his phone.

Ruby. He climbed off the bed and let her in the door.

She shrugged off her light jacket as she entered, leaving just a black tank top over her jeans. "Shit, Sam, I didn't think you were ever going to let me in."

Sam rubbed a hand across his face, pushing sweat-damp hair out of his eyes. "Sorry, I was asleep."

"You feeling a little weak there, Sam?" She smirked, tipping her head back to show off the length of her neck. "You want something from me?"

"I, uh--" Sam tucked one hand into his jeans pocket, wrapping his fingers around the necklace. "You see this Christmas in July thing they're doing here?"

"How could I miss it? It's bad enough when you humans do this crap in December."

"Yeah, I--" And it was ridiculously stupid. Sam knew it, but he wanted to be able to pretend, just for one moment, that what they had together was something more than just loneliness and desperation rolled up into one big, wrong package. "I got you a present."

Ruby laughed, flashing black eyes up at Sam. "Demons don't exactly _celebrate_ Christmas, you know."

"I just wanted--" Sam swallowed back the truth, the things he wanted that even he knew he could never have. "Want to see it on you."

"Oh, Sam, is it naughty?" She peeled off her tank top and stood bare-breasted, her hips canting to the side and she stepped closer.

"No." Sam pulled the necklace out and held it up to her, fingers fumbling as he attached the clasp behind her neck. The dark red gem shone against her skin, gathering the low light from the bedside lamp.

Ruby looked down, fingering the pendant where it lay against her skin. "Well, Sam Winchester, your daddy taught you how to treat a girl right." She wrapped her hand around the pendant and tugged, snapping the chain. "Too bad I'm not exactly a girl."

Sam blinked, staring at the necklace dangling from her fingers. "Jesus, Ruby. You didn't have to do that."

"I'll show you the kind of necklace demons like." She pulled a small knife out of her pocket and flicked it open. "I think you'll like it, too."

She looked back down at her chest and drew a quick circle over her breast bone, beads of blood springing up behind the blade. She tossed down the knife and used both index fingers to draw rough lines of blood up from the circle to the sides of her neck, dark mimic of a chain. "I promise you Sam, this'll taste much better than that dead old thing."

Sam felt his anger wash away under the tide of need and he put his hands on her shoulders, ducking his head down to lick at the trails of blood. He walked backward, pulling her with him until he could sit on the side of the bed, tucking his calves around her legs to draw her in closer. He sucked at the circle, the jewel she'd drawn for him, and the scent of her blood was under his nose, the tang of sweat rising up from between her breasts as they brushed against the top of his chest.

Her taste flooded his mouth, his throat, her power sang through his body, and for just that moment Sam could forget about everything else. He could forget his grief and his failure, he could forget the dead silence that would come after Ruby left. He could forget Dean and how empty the open road was without him. Just that forgetting felt like a miracle in its own way.

Sam wrapped his hands around Ruby's waist and let his mind go.


End file.
